Hilltown 8 Pottery Tour Shows Off Home Studios

 

 

They tend to work in isolation; their medium is organic to the core; and much of what they create, while often celebrated in sleek gallery exhibitions, is ultimately used on a daily basis in our homes. They are potters, and there are lots of them here who are inspired by our region’s undulating geography. The Hilltown 8, a community of clay artists tucked into the nooks and crannies in a thirty-mile radius of western Massachusetts, invite you to the third annual self-guided tour of their home -studios on July 25 and 26.
 

 

“It makes sense to see the work in the studio—where the pots live,” says Michael McCarthy, of Goshen, one of the original Hilltown 6 (two new sets of hands join the tour this year: Cummington sculptor Eric Smith and Robbie Heidinger, of Westhampton). “There’s a lot of mystery and alchemy behind pottery: turning a piece of clay—a piece of earth—into a fired state. There’s a real beauty in seeing how the process works, the thought evolution, and that’s hard to show with a finished piece on a pedestal.”
 

 

Absorbing the energy of their experimental environments is essential to understanding their art. Christy Knox, who cultivates inspiration for her plant-decorated pottery from her garden in Cummington, plans to take to the wheel when inspiration strikes; visitors to Heidinger’s studio will notice drawings and paintings of flora and fauna—the “warm--ups or reference notes” for her clay works.
 

 

See how Hiroshi Nakayama strives for shibui (Japanese for an understated appreciation of beauty) by inspecting the new, copper-based (and thus difficult to fire) crimson glaze he’s concocted in Worthington; peer into the massive, wood-burning kilns in which Mark Shapiro and Sam Taylor fire large batches of their early-American stoneware; and marvel as Constance Talbot carries on ancient tradition at her two-hundred-year-old home in Windsor.
 

 

“Every single pot that comes off the wheel in my workshop is a reflection of the time and space in which it was made,” Smith explains. “It’s wonderful for me to have people come directly to where the work is made, see the gardens, watch my four- year- old run across the field—perhaps get a little dust on their jeans.”
 

 

Camaraderie is shaped. Adds McCarthy, “People have no clue where I live when I tell them I live in Goshen, [but] this is in their backyard. [Touring our studios] makes people feel connected to this creative energy, and a part of it. Which they are.”—ARB

[JULY 2009]

 

THE GOODS

Hilltown 8 Pottery Tour
July 25 & 26 at 10-5
www.hilltown6.com